House The Homeless, Don't Move Them

Sister Mary Alice Synkewecz

Cities of consequence take on issues of consequence. Homelessness is one such issue. Rather than just moving the Immaculate Conception Shelter from Park Street, there is a better solution that is known and demonstrable. It is less expensive to the people living in the Immaculate Conception Shelter, to the merchants on Park Street and to the taxpayers. The solution is housing - an investment in people.

In a brief look at the cycle of homelessness, expenses emerge: Bouncing from the streets to emergency shelters forces a homeless person to encounter emergency rooms, the police, courts and prisons, to be discharged to a life on the streets and to re-entry into the cycle. Each stop comes with a hefty public price tag.

Housing breaks the cycle. Transitional housing helps people leave the shelters and receive help in righting a life with dignity. Supportive housing offers more permanent help and direction for people who can make it on their own. The social bottom line is a restoration of human dignity and jobs. The financial bottom line is that it costs less. The moral measure of any economy is how the weakest are faring.

For Hartford to become reborn to its former status as a city of consequence - a term The Courant used in its Aug. 18 editorial on Park Street - it must take a stern reckoning of itself, invest in its people and in its neighborhoods and rebuild itself.

Consequence cuts both ways. It is born of action or inaction. Hartford will face the consequences whether the investment is significant or superficial. Neglect may have saved the street, as architect Tyler Smith wrote in the Aug. 18 Commentary section, but it has created and perpetuates its homeless population.

An investment in housing is an investment in people as well as an investment in Park Street, Main Street and streets across Connecticut.

Sister Mary Alice Synkewecz is an advocacy coordinator for the Collaborative Center for Justice in Hartford.